Bernardo Moya is an australiabusinessblog.com, author and founder of Best You. As the creator of the Best You Expo, his events bring together over 10,000 people, whether he’s doing them in London or LA. He sat down with Jessica Ab to talk about how he got to where he is now, his new book, Man evolvesand the most important thing that everyone needs in his opinion to be successful in life and in business.
Jessica Abo: Bernardo, you’ve shared that responsibility has played an important role in your life since you were a child. Give us an idea of what that looked like.
Bernardo Moya:
My father died when I was young when I was 15. Long before that, I was the captain of the football team. I was in charge of the class. I was a corporal in the army, so I’ve always had that sense of responsibility.
When my father died, I was responsible for my brother and my mother, and I always felt that I would always lead instead of being led. I was also always the designated driver. So I’ve always wanted to be in control to some degree. I’ve had a few bosses in my life, and they’ve been great, but I’d rather be my own. So that’s it. That’s where it came from.
What were some of your first jobs?
Moya:
When I was young, I started teaching English because I lived in Spain, and then I became a DJ. Then I ran nightclubs before getting into real estate. I did so many different things, and then I had a construction company, but always with the idea of wanting to do more and achieve more. But also with that awareness of the reality of mortality. My father passed away relatively young; he had so many things to do, and i wanted to make sure i could accomplish as much if not much more than him due to his age and the things i wanted to do.
What did you learn as a nightclub promoter, and how do you see that in your life today?
Moya:
When I hosted parties, it was about getting people together to have fun. So we came up with an idea and a concept, and then we went out and got people. It was then the idea to build, to create things and to be very visual. Since my early years, that has helped me develop many of the skills I have today. And I always say that. I often think we underestimate the lessons we learn and the process of growing, evolving and reinventing ourselves. So it helped me in what I do today.
What brought you from promoting the nightclub life to the real estate life?
Moya:
I would love the idea of going to talk to someone and hang out with them and be confident and be charismatic or magnetic whatever I could do to get people interested in the properties or interested in me , but also in what I was offering.
So yeah, I think the transition from me leading parties and then imagining and visualizing everything and seeing everything I wanted to build in the future, and that was these events that I’m doing now are very connected.
What happened on your real estate journey that made you lose everything?
Moya:
In Europe we had two huge real estate bubbles. The first time I was 26, I told them I had no money. I had a tin full of coins, and I remember having the last one and buying a tin of lentils for my son. And the second, I was 40.
I’ve hit rock bottom several times, as low as you can get. And from there I have always found the strength to come back. I have always come back stronger and have never let adversity knock me down.
What got you out of that place?
Moya:
One of the things I am is resilient. I’ve had very dark days and bad situations, but I was always ready to fight again the next morning. And I would never look at the hole. I would look at where I’m going and what I’m doing. What am I aiming for? What else can I do?
So it was always around that, looking for the solution instead of focusing on the problem. So I think any wealthy or successful australiabusinessblog.com, millionaire or billionaire would have told you that you’re not an australiabusinessblog.com unless you’ve lost your money a few times and bottomed out a few times, but it’s made me who I am .
To what do you attribute your mental strength and clarity?
Moya:
What gave me the focus was NLP, Neuro-Linguistic Programming. I came across a book, Change Your Life in Seven Days, that caught my eye. And then I became a practitioner, a master practitioner and a trainer. So while I lost everything, NLP gave me a clear understanding. I wanted to do something different that had more meaning, and that’s what I’m doing today.
And then promotion came into play again.
Moya:
It did. That was it. From losing everything in real estate and seeing everything I had, everything I owned and everything I knew disappear before me, suddenly, standing in the middle of the room, I understood that I wanted to do something else. And then I had the opportunity to promote the man I was teaching NLP to, Dr. Richard Bandler.
So I became his promoter out of the blue. And it was a big decision because I had to move countries. I had to leave my family at home. I commuted for three years, Monday through Friday, never promoting events but encouraging parties. I was good at marketing. I used to do that in real estate. Well, I founded the world’s largest NLP training company, NLP Life Training. And then, after that, I made The Best You.
Where were you when you got this idea for Best You?
Moya:
I started to identify that it’s a very fragmented industry, where the greats are doing great things, but the ones that aren’t great, trying to evolve and become great, didn’t have a platform. So there you could just go to the yoga show, you could go to the meditation show, you could see Tony Robbins, or you could go to someone else. And I wanted to bring everyone together because personal, professional growth means many different things to many others.
So I wanted to have something very anti-niche that brought everyone under one roof, and also give them stage time, which they often didn’t have. And that’s where the whole idea of The Best You as a brand came from and all the different things I’ve done with The Best You.
How does The Best You Expo work?
Moya:
I visualized, “Why can’t I teach five or six or eight or nine instead of one seminar?” And that’s what I started with. We now have nine stages: Room for Women, Empowering Women, Best for Business, Passion to Profit and Inspiration zone, where we teach people to dance or martial arts. We put that event together. And then the idea is also to let exhibitors share their expertise. And it was tough.
The first one I did, I remember not sleeping for four months. We’ve worked hard. We had 3,000 attendees. I went to the door to see how many people were at the door, and there were 10, and six were registered. I thought, “Oh my God, why hasn’t anyone come?” And in the end we had 3,000 people.
Who is coming to the expo?
Moya:
It’s for anyone and everyone. It’s the holistic approach. I think to become a better person; there are many different aspects of life that you need to look at. You have to take care of yourself; you need to eat right, exercise, meditate and be surrounded by the right people – positivity, learn new skills, be up to date with everything happening in apps and blockchain, and everything.
Apart from that, it’s love. You have to be a loving individual and open to love to become aware of what is happening in the world. That’s what The Best You means. So if you think you fall into that category, you should check out The Best You Expo. That’s what it’s about.
You say that love is the one thing that everyone needs more of, both in their life and in their business. And it’s also a big reason why you wrote your last book, Man evolves. Can you tell us more about that?
Moya:
Love is not part of the conversation of many. So as a conduit, as the person who brings other people to the forefront and gives them a stage, I want to take that responsibility to encourage them to share more love, talk more about love, because we all know that. We all have friends who suddenly get some bad news and priorities immediately change. And we continue to focus on totally worldly things that have no value at all. And only what we leave behind and what we do, and especially who we love and feel loved, will matter at the end of our day. So everything we do should be close to love.
So this book, A man who evolves, is about my journey, but I try to share it. I’m a man; I’ve made mistakes, a lot, and one of them is not being open enough and not being vulnerable enough. And we must be able to come forward and be honest and express love, most importantly. In this book I open myself up, but it tries in a small way to encourage men and women to talk about love and express love.
You have also written a book called The question; What questions can we ask ourselves daily, every quarter, to make sure we’re living our best lives?
Moya:
We all have an internal dialogue and a voice that goes around in our head. And it can be positive, or it can be harmful. And the quality of your life depends on the quality of the questions you ask yourself. Because the answer is not necessarily an answer. The answer is the question. So we have to look and get up in the morning, and what else can I do today? How can I become a better person? How can I make a difference? Who can I touch today? Who can I love today? Who can I show some gratitude to? What am I thankful for?
So the book asks those questions in its various paragraphs and chapters. And I recommend people have a notebook and ask them. So it made me think, and it was just as thought-provoking as the fact that one of the questions I asked towards the end of the book is, am I happy? What else should I do?
I was not happy because I wanted to do many things but I felt I couldn’t. So I couldn’t bring myself to publish a book until I asked myself those tough questions. When I did that and acted, that’s when I posted the text.
Finally, what’s next for you?
Moya:
To keep talking about love, to keep sharing the whole idea about being open and honest so we can express our feelings. And I hope to share that on stages all over the world. And I’m half Spanish, so addressing the Hispanic market is also essential. But apart from that, The Best You Expo. I want us to take this globally. We have our conference in LA this year and we plan to grow exponentially. I would like to see an event that hundreds of thousands of people attend, and I want it to be shown for millions of people to watch worldwide. And I want to give speakers and experts the opportunity to share their expertise around the world. So that’s my view. And as long as I have the strength and guts to do it, we’re going to do it.
